by Keary Taylor
She rights herself, still standing at the edge of the roof. “Sully. What…what are you doing here?”
“Please,” I plead with her. “We’ll talk in a minute. Can you please just get down from there?”
She just stares at me, that vacant and distant look in her eyes.
“Stay…” I huff in the cold night. “I’m coming up.”
I dart forward, across the street. I yank the front door open, searching around for the stairs. Down the hall I find them, and I take them two at a time, climbing to the second floor, the third. I yank a door open that says roof access, and climb the final flight.
The wind blows harder this high up. The cold steals my breath as I search for her.
And there she still stands, her back to me. The blanket pulled around her shoulders. Just staring out over the city.
“Iona,” I breathe her name. I cross the roof, my footsteps cautious so I don’t startle her. “Let’s go inside. It’s freezing out here.”
She looks over her shoulder at me. And there’s little to no life in her eyes.
I stop at her side, looking up at her, standing on the ledge. I reach a hand up. And she just stares at it.
“Iona, please,” I beg her.
And something sparks there. For just a brief moment. But it’s enough.
She takes my hand, and I grip her tightly as I half lift her down.
Internally, I curse. She’s light as a feather. Easily under a hundred pounds. Made of bones and skin.
I tuck the blanket tighter around her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, and pull her into my side. She doesn’t say anything, just stares ahead emptily.
I’m genuinely scared.
Without a word, I guide her back to the stairs, and I half carry her down the flight of stairs back to the third floor. I’m not sure if she knows where she’s going as her feet shuffle once we reach her floor, but finally, she stops outside the door that reads 308.
Hoping and praying this is it, I twist the knob, and push the door open.
I don’t pretend to keep the church clean in any way shape or form. But compared to the place we enter, it’s as fresh as a hospital.
Dirt coats the floor. Garbage is strewn about everywhere. There are clothes lying around. Books lie about. The small kitchen just off the entry is caked with a layer of dust. The garbage can is overflowing with what looks to be boxes and old food—the smell confirms it.
I cover my nose with a hand, fighting the urge to gag at the reek of spoiled food.
But Iona doesn’t seem to notice any of it. She shuffles forward like the walking dead. She turns left, through a small living room. She aims for the door at the far side of it, and pushes it open.
The bedroom is just as much of a disaster. Clothes everywhere. Garbage. Two of the four light bulbs in the fixture on the ceiling are out.
Iona climbs into the bed, and she’s swallowed up by the mound of pillows and blankets there.
I notice there are little white circles on her dark blue bedding. Tear stains. All over the place.
This is far, far worse than I expected.
“Why were you up on the roof, Iona?” I ask, because I have to start somewhere. “It’s below freezing and the wind… You could have easily fallen.”
She looks over at the window, but it’s dark outside, pitch black, and there’s nothing but a few city lights here and there. “Because it’s quieter up there.”
I sit on the side of her bed. “Iona, there’s no one else here. It seems pretty quiet in this apartment to me.”
She shakes her head. Again. Again. But she doesn’t say anything.
“Please,” I say. “Don’t go on the roof again.”
She doesn’t agree. Doesn’t nod.
“I learned some things today,” she says quietly. “And I don’t know what’s true. None of it seems real.”
My head lifts slightly. “Oh?”
She nods. And finally, she looks up. “I went to see Jack’s killer today.”
Her words rip a knife from my navel up to my throat.
“He said things,” she continues, still staring at the window. “All these things. And how can I believe them when I watched him murder Jack in cold blood? But…” Her voice quivers. “How can I not, when he knew so many things about me?”
A well exists inside myself, and it fills with thick, black ink. It ripples out through the highway of my veins. Spreading dread.
“What did he say, Iona?”
“He killed Jack because Jack killed his sister.” She says the words so clearly. “Not with his own hands. He thinks Jack got in her head, twisted her all around. And in the end, somehow made her kill herself.”
“Was it Sharon, Simone, or Joanne?” That ink begins to crystalize into ice.
Finally, Iona’s eyes flick to mine. Wide.
“Simone,” she says. “His sister was Simone.”
She studies me for a long moment. And finally, she raises her hand, looking down at the left one. “I left my ring at the church.”
I nod.
She looks back up at me. “He knew exactly what is happening to me. He said…” Her voice falters, and a tear slips out onto her cheek. Her eyes grow distant again, glassy. And she looks scared. “He said it’s exactly what his sister went through, before she killed herself.”
A magnet draws me closer to her on the bed. I breathe deep, growing myself. The instinct to protect this tiny fawn from the echoes beyond the veil cause the beast in me to grow.
I reach into my pocket and grip the cloth. I draw it out, letting the cloth fall open in my palm to reveal the ring.
“I found it beneath the couch at the church,” I explain. “I grabbed it. And three other women stormed through the gate like the horsemen of the apocalypse.”
Iona’s eyes fix on the ring. She looks ill. And confused. And lost.
“Sharon, Joanne, and Simone,” I say. “In the few moments they were able to stay in our world, they told me their stories. Each of them loved Jack. Each of them said yes to his proposal. And each of them took their own life.”
A sharp breath is sucked into Iona’s throat. She actually pushes herself further back against the headboard, trying to put a little more distance between herself and the ring.
“I know you loved Jack, Iona,” I say. My body wants to be physically ill at the words I know are coming. “But I don’t know that you actually chose to do so.”
She presses her lips tightly together, squeezing her eyes closed, forcing out a stream of tears. She turns her head away from me.
“This is dangerous,” I breathe, closing the cloth around the ring again, placing it back in my pocket. “There is something…not right going on. We have to stop it.”
“Jack is dead,” she says, the words harsh and angry. “It has already been stopped.”
“Be honest with yourself, Iona,” I say, my volume increasing slightly. “Look inside yourself. Do you really think it’s over?”
Her breath hitches. Like she can’t properly suck it in. She shakes her head again, but it’s more of a denial than an admission.
“You need rest,” I say, drawing energy from a well inside of myself that is diminished. “Sleep. We’ll figure things out in the morning.”
She stares off at the wall for a moment longer. But she sniffs, wiping the blanket over her nose. And she nods.
Gently, as if she’s in physical pain, she slides herself further down into the bed until she’s lying down. She curls onto her left side, her back turned to me.
Chapter Thirty-Four
IONA
A void. That’s what is inside of me.
Big.
Dark.
Consuming.
Somewhere at the bottom of it is doubt and confusion.
Raymond’s words beat against the back of my brain. Sully’s information sinks claws into my flesh and drags them down my back.
Truth.
What is the truth?
What is reality?
> And a voice keeps trying to whisper in my ear, they were right.
They were right.
Chapter Thirty-Five
SULLY
I pull the door mostly closed, but leave a one-inch sliver open so that I can peek in on her if I need to.
I know she isn’t asleep. There’s a good chance she won’t be able to.
But she needs to think things over. And being here, watching the doors, I can give her a safe space to do that right now.
I cover my nose again at the smell. Holding my breath, I stalk over to the garbage. I tie off the bag and carry it out to the hall. I’ll take it down to the outside bin later.
Opening the fridge, I find more spoiled food. As I dump one thing after another out, I find that every single item in here has expired and begun to rot. I fill another garbage bag full, and put it out in the hall, as well.
I check all the cupboards, and I’m not surprised one bit when there is very little food filling them. Iona’s self-starvation tendencies are here on full display.
I open the windows, despite the outside freezing temperatures, just to air the space out and get rid of the decaying smell.
I wander around with another trash bag, filling it with the random garbage just left here and there. I fill two bags. I next make a pile of all the dirty laundry and start a load in the washer I find in a closet. Sweeping is immediately followed by mopping.
Well into the wee hours of the night, I scrub and clean.
All the while, the thread at the back of my brain tightens just a little.
That tug that connects me to Roselock.
I’m ever aware of its exact location in relation to where I am. North. South. On the other side of the continent.
Slowly, so gradually, each fiber of that thread grows thicker. Pulling me tighter.
“You okay?” a concerned voice asked.
I looked up, and realized I’d been gripping the table tightly, my knuckles white.
Roselock was calling. The pull at my brain was agonizing. The screams in my ears were so loud. The ground at my feet felt slick with blood.
“Yeah, sorry,” I apologized, squaring my shoulders, shoving the anchor back.
Bobbi looked at me with worry in her blue-green eyes. “You look like you could use some sleep. Should we call it a night?”
I reached across the table, placing my hand over hers, totally enveloping it. “You’re always too understanding.” I smiled, taking in her angelic features. The bright eyes. The narrow nose. Lips stained pink by color. Her blonde hair. “As much as I want to say no, I have to admit I’m exhausted.”
She smiled, leaning forward, and pressed a gentle kiss to my cheek. “I’ll take care of you.”
She stood, pulling me behind her. I dropped the money on the table, and the two of us walked outside into the late summer evening.
It had been a perfect summer here in Charleston. Once the semester ended, my graduation finally over, I spent as much time as I could at the water. It was there I met Bobbi, waitressing at my favorite café. After a dozen muted smiles, blush from her cheeks, I asked her to go to the movies with me, and she said yes.
It had been bliss. Her hand in mine, the sand between our toes. The sun on our backs as she looked up and kissed her lips to mine.
That was the way it was. Light, summer.
Hand in hand, we walked back to my apartment. She would stay for the weekend, before she had to head further inland to return to school for her sophomore year at Charleston Southern University.
Bobbi talked on and on about some party her cousin had tomorrow, casually inviting me to it, while I got ready for bed. The woman could talk. About nothing and everything. If I paid attention to every single detail she spoke, I was fairly sure I would know every single detail about her.
But it sometimes became difficult to absorb all her words.
Especially when she was so beautiful to behold.
It was distracting.
I lay on the bed, she in the bathroom, talking while even brushing her teeth.
I smiled in amusement, lacing my fingers across my chest, letting my eyes slip closed. I grew heavier.
Heavier.
People milled about, doing their daily activities. Beating the dirt out of rugs. Harvesting vegetables from their side gardens. Shouting at the children to stay within sight.
And then there was the beating of drums.
And screams. The horrified looks on darker skinned faces.
Women hid with their children. Men went for their guns.
Arrows were fired. Tomahawks thrown.
Gunpowder filled the air.
Blood.
Blood poured onto the soil. Splattered against the houses.
It bubbled up from beneath the church.
Bubbled.
Gurgled.
“Sully!”
The screaming grew louder, morphed into my own name.
“Sully!”
Hands shook my shoulders, violent.
I was suffocating.
I rolled over, coughing violently. Blood splattered from my mouth, spraying onto the wall, all over the floor. I pushed myself up on an elbow, coughing more blood up. Gasping to catch my breath.
“Sully,” Bobbi cried in horror. “Keep breathing, I’m going to call 911.”
I gasped, finally sucking down air. I flung out a hand, grabbing her arm. “No. Don’t.”
“Sully!” she cried in horror. “You start suffocating on blood in the middle of the night, you need a hospital!”
I gripped her arm tighter. Darkness made it near impossible to see. I shook my head, though. “No,” I repeated.
I didn’t need a hospital.
Roselock wanted me back. And it was going to do anything it took to bring me back.
Three nights in a row now, I’d had the nightmares. Last night I woke up with the taste of blood in my mouth.
The stories of my grandfathers were true.
And it was my time.
Pulling back to the present, I lean over the sink and spit, clearing the faint taste of blood from my mouth.
In the window above the sink, I can barely make out my own reflection.
Wild hair. Overgrown beard. Dark eyes.
Savage man.
The product of Roselock, and all its madness.
I glance over at the clock above the stove, reading five in the morning.
It has taken me seven hours to clean Iona’s apartment. But I turn and observe my work.
It’s habitable again.
The floors are clean. The surfaces have been wiped. The fridge has been sanitized. All smells have evaporated.
Tired and sore, I head toward the bathroom next to the bedroom. Starting the water, I strip my filthy clothes off. Wrapping a towel around my waist, I cut back to the washer, throwing my clothes in. I return to the steaming hot shower.
It’s been a long time since I had to worry if I was actually clean or not. But I remember the look on Officer Langford and Tilton’s faces yesterday. It is likely I will have to interact with others before I return to Roselock. And I shouldn’t look like a savage.
When I’m finished showering, I find a brush under the sink, and drag it through the mass of hair. Tame my beard as much as I can.
Looking at myself in the mirror, I seem a little more civilized.
Walking out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around my hips, I aim for the laundry closet, when a figure next to the dining table freezes me.
The woman stares at me, horror and shock pinning her features.
I look around, feeling panicked for a moment.
An explanation. I have to give some kind of explanation.
“Who…” the woman stumbles. “Who are you and why are you in my sister’s apartment?”
Sister.
Looking at her now, it’s obvious. Put about thirty pounds on her, and Iona would look just like this woman, perhaps a little older.
“Viola?” I guess, feeling bare and exposed.
Literally, considering I’m wearing only a towel.
“Yes,” she confirms. “I’d say you’re a maid, considering,” she looks around the now clean apartment. “But you don’t look like a maid, and it’s six in the morning, and you’re not wearing any clothes.”
My awkward discomfort growing by the moment, I inch toward the washer, grab my clothes, and stuff them in the dryer.
“I’m uh, a friend of your sister.” Lie.
Viola raises one eyebrow, a little smirk tugging on one side of her mouth. “Wow,” she says. “I didn’t think she was even close to being ready for…that. But I’m happy she’s finally moving on.”
“No,” I shake my head, feeling my face heat. “Not like that. I, yes, I spent the night cleaning up. It was dirty work.” I indicate the running dryer.
We whisper, so as to not wake Iona, who I’m fairly certain did actually fall asleep somewhere just after midnight.
“Oh,” she says, seeming a little confused. “Well, I…I was on my way to work, I’m a nurse at the hospital, and I saw her light on and got worried.”
I want to tell her that she should be worried. That there is far too much to be worried about right now.
“She’s not been the same, you know,” Viola says, her eyes fixed on the bedroom door. “Not in a really, really long time. I assume you know about Jack?”
I nod.
She does, too. “I encouraged them to be together at first. He was good looking, and for the first little while, he seemed so good for her. Did and said everything just right. But I was wrong.”
She looks back over at me. “Whoever you are, thank you for helping her. This…” she looks around the apartment. “It’s a big step. Her letting you inside her apartment, it’s something. So, thank you.”
“Sully,” I offer.
“Thank you, Sully,” she says with a smile, and steps for the door. She offers a sad little smile before letting herself out the door.
“Mom and Viola and Cressida told me our relationship was getting unhealthy.”
I startle, turning to find Iona standing in the doorway of the bedroom. She wears clothes I’m guessing are from yesterday, wrinkled and rumpled.